15Nov05

From a LEO, friend, and instructor in SA:

"We completed our shooting exercise today. It is part of the curri culum necessary to upgrade from being a Traffic Officer to being a Metropolitan Police Officer.

Eye protection and baseball caps were optional. No work out of holsters. No

verbal challenges, tactical movement, or scanning. No reloading or stoppag e drills. On finishing each stage, the shooter was required to stand with th e gun in slide lock, remove the magazine, and hold it for inspection. Once declared 'safe,' the pistol is holstered with the slide sti ll locked to the rear.

Shooters were sent off the range in this same state, with the result that guys were strolling around casually pulling guns out in order to get slides

forward. Some actually loaded their pistols. Most didn't.

None of this in any way seemed to bother range officers. As I was a student, I decided to be quiet, follow orders, and get the farce over with, but I couldn't keep quiet about this last transgression. When I made my concerns

known, it was like explaining MS Word to a chimpanzee! Personal readiness is not only absent from the agenda. It is absent from the entire curriculum.

Unhappily, the foregoing is typical of police 'training' her e. It's no wonder guns are looked upon with morbid fear by so many. Not even police k now how to use them properly, nor are they likely to at this rate!"

Comment: Institutional "training" like this, which is in no way restricted to SA, is inexcusable! We never have enough time to train to begin with, a nd then we see these few, valuable moments foolishly squandered on trumpery as

described in the forgoing. Too many attaboys. Not enough heroes.

/John